Preamble: in college, in about 1975, I attended a performance by the BYU performing folk dance group, and promptly went to my own Phys Ed department to sign up for a one-semester folk dance class. There I learned Mayim, Miserlou, Harmonica, Ersko Kolo, Erev Ba, Irish Washerwoman, and other "old chestnuts."

Fast forward through life with no dancing more than 20 years - a friend in Montana put up signs advertising something like "one night only, come do the folk dances you used to do in the 70's somewhere" so I went. We did Mayim, Miserlou, Harmonica, Ersko Kolo (this list look familiar, like the paragraph above??). To make a long story short, at the end of the night, those of us still standing were so happy with the evening that we couldn't BEAR to never do this again, and we started meeting monthly, pooling our resources - tapes, boomboxes, knowledge. I didn't even know there WERE written notes.That was the beginning of a group that was able to step up from once a month to twice a month and then to once a week. It is still ongoing, though there has been some turnover of people, with some moving away and others moving into the area.

I think my motto should be "Endorphins are my drug of choice" and I think it was those "feel-good chemicals" produced by exercise, music, and friends that got me hooked on folk dancing.

Two things hooked me initially. First I found out I could actually dance, something I had never thought I was particularly good at. The second thing was a particular step in a particular dance when my body all of sudden seemed to "get it." It was while dancing the grapevine bit of Ali Pasa and feeling that almost-pause on the long count as you step in front and across. Since then there have been many other things that kept me involved, but that started me off.